Goodnature Ends 2017 with a Successful X-1 Mini Presale
When we first started developing the X-1 Mini a couple years ago, we didn’t really know what the perfect juice machine looked like. How big it should be, how much juice it should make, and what price point it should be at were all a bit of a mystery. We did know one thing for sure— the market was missing a solution to make fresh, cold-pressed juice front-of-house in a cafe instead of in the back of a commercial kitchen. Our marketing team set out to learn as much as we could about what our market wanted. We sent out surveys (many of you reading may have responded. Thank you!), ran polls on our website, and asked for customer feedback along the way. This feedback process was new to us, and helped narrow down what our target market wanted. At each iteration of the new product we invited some of our network to see the machine, use it, and give us feedback. We would ask questions like “What do you think of the size?”, “What would you change about it?”, and “How much would you be willing to pay for this product?” We ended up completely changing direction more than once and starting over based on customer feedback. It hurts to throw away a prototype design, but in the end it costs much less than releasing the wrong product to the public.
What Juice Served Here Closing Means for Juice
Friday proved to be a sad day in the juicing industry as an iconic brand, Juice Served Here, became Juice Served…. somewhere else. Shutting down their business somewhat unexpectedly, the news came as a statement on the JSH website as well as an email sent out to their contact list. As one of our longer standing customers, it came as a shock to us at Goodnature as well. Juice Served Here had what many considered the best branding in the beverage industry. Many things made their brand unique: Their simple-yet-powerful glass milk bottle with white cap, the numbered recipes displayed as square tiles in their stores, and nobody will ever forget the first time they saw one of their painted-black milk trucks hustling through LA en route to deliver a few cases of juice. Truly “Never Conventional,” as their slogan stated, due to their creative founder and CEO Alex Matthews who came into the beverage industry with roots in the fashion industry. Their branding quickly became so popular in California that it’s been imitated (and sometimes even copied) all over the world in dozens of other juice companies. I even know of one brand that uses the slogan “Always Unconventional.” Yikes.
X-1 Mini Update Videos – Hourly Juice Production and First Look
My brother, Eric, (CEO) was able to make 64 bottles of apple juice (12 ounce bottles) in an hour on a recent prototype of the X-1 Mini last month. We filmed it and decided to post it as a time lapse, as it shows that this machine can really support a small juice business. The prototype here is basically all of the functional components of the final version of the X-1 Mini Pro without the pretty design or nice materials.
Introducing the Goodnature X-1 Mini
It is with great pride and excitement today that we bring you the X-1 Mini. The world’s first commercial, all in one, countertop cold-press system. Fruit goes in, juice comes out, a few bottles at a time, with simple operation. The original X-1 is the most popular commercial press in the world, first invented in the 1990’s by Dale Wettlaufer, Goodnature’s founder and my dad. Dad has always had a unique ability to distill a process down to only its most critical steps. This is something that you don’t design, but you discover. You might know where you want to go, but mother nature will make sure you find the best route through difficult trial and error. Truly curious and inventive people so often discover something new because they are the ones playing and tinkering all day. Inventing is an exercise in immersion. We knew where we wanted to go, but how we were going to get there was something we had to discover. We wanted to make a machine that would take about five pounds of fruits and vegetables and turn it into the world’s best cold-pressed juice. It took thousands of tests to finally get there. Our lab gets as much produce delivered every day as a busy cafe because we are constantly making juice, tasting, and testing. Goodnature isn’t a big company; Product development is a motley crew of engineers and designers with a common passion for quality. We set out to make something that does its job–in as simple a way as possible, and as reliably as possible. Its job is to make the best juice in the world. The way that it does this is a two step process: opening fruits and vegetables to a cellular level, then squeezing them in a special way: gently, but very, very hard. There are a lot of new innovations and technology inside of this machine. Most of them will go unnoticed. The stuff that does go noticed might seem obvious, like it’s the way it’s “supposed” to be. We hope that’s the case. We want this machine to just be right and do it’s job. We hope this tool will allow you to run your businesses better, make the world a little healthier, and spread the juice. -Eric Wettlaufer, CEO
Why Juices are Getting Smaller
For years the standard bottle of cold-pressed juice has been 16 or 17 ounces (often times “16 oz” bottles are actually 16.7), but lately you may have noticed a trend – the bottles are getting smaller, and coming in at around 12 oz / 350 ml. Let’s look at why…
Juice Labeling Requirements
You’ve decided on what type of bottles you want to use and are ready to start designing your labels…this is the fun part! Labels are a big part of your identity as a brand. The font, decoration, placement, and the colors used, play an important role in the unique impression that labels give your business. What’s not so fun is trying to figure out what is required by the FDA and where on the label you need to place it.
How To Earn More Profit in Your Juice Business
The Importance of Maintaining Your Juice Equipment
Sometimes we will receive a frantic call from a panicked juice bar owner – their juicer is down! When they can’t make juice, their whole business comes to a halt. Usually it’s something simple that can be resolved over the phone, but sometimes it is something more serious that can cause the machine to be down for a day or two before it’s repaired. This is a very unfortunate thing to happen for a juice business.
Juice Shot Recipes: Sweet Revenge & Toxin Ninja
Small portions of nutrient dense juice, commonly referred to as detox shots, wellness shots, booster shots, or immunity shots are gaining popularity. Health-wise they pack a huge punch of vitamins and antioxidants in a small 2oz – 4oz shot.
Behind the Juice – A New Documentary Series About the Cold-Pressed Juice Industry
Amazon Buys Whole Foods – What Does this Mean for Cold-Pressed Juice?
It’s been all over the news – Amazon agreed to purchase Whole Foods Markets in a cash deal for $13.7 Billion USD. Wow. There has been a ton of articles on how this will affect the grocery industry and Amazon as a company, but how will this affect juice? (If you prefer a quick video analysis, you can check it out on my personal youtube channel here.) Let’s look at some facts about each company to help us better understand how this will impact the juicing industry. Whole Foods Here is a brief timeline of Whole Food’s juicing programs. (Dates are estimates) 2012 – Whole Foods was one of the first national chains to carry cold-pressed juice, with brands like Blueprint and Suja. 2013 – Whole Foods starts making their own cold-pressed juice in some stores. 2014, April – Whole Foods awards Suja their “Vendor of the Year” award. 2014-2015 – Whole foods expands their in-store juicing through their Western, Southern, and Mid-Western regions. 2015-Present – Whole Foods continues to expand their juicing program, with in-store juice bars and their private label cold-pressed juice offerings. Amazon Let’s look at what lead up to Amazon purchasing Whole Foods (Dates are estimates, most dates from wikipedia): 1994, July – Amazon launches as an online bookseller and disrupts the brick and mortar bookstore industry and goes public a few years later. 2005, February – Amazon Launches Amazon Prime, a paid membership program that offers free 2-day shipping on eligible purchases. 2007, August – Amazon Launches Amazon Fresh, a grocery delivery service. 2015, September – Launches Amazon Prime Now, a restaurant, grocery, and “essentials” delivery service that can deliver goods in under two hours in select cities. 2016, December – Amazon opens Amazon Go, a brick and mortar grocery store with innovative technology open to amazon employees as part of their beta test program. 2017, June – Amazon Purchases Whole Foods Markets, Fashion Dress Market, Fincluding their US, UK, and Canada operations. So looking at this timeline, it’s obvious that Amazon has been looking at the grocery industry for years now. Amazon loves to find BIG industries that they can disrupt. The grocery industry is massive, at about $580B revenue in 2016. WFM only represents a small chuck of that at about $15B in 2016, compared to larger competitors like Kroger which had revenue of about $115B in 2016.
How to Make Cold-Pressed Nut Oil
Making your own cold-pressed nut oils is a great alternative to purchasing costly cold-pressed oils or even the less expensive “refined” oils. Refined oils use heat during pressing which often destroys the delicate nutty flavor. Using a cold-press to extract oil from nuts and seeds is easy and efficient.